ABSTRACT
Learning can occur through both success and failure. Supporting student success through scaffolding is generally preferable for straightforward skills. But when seeking to develop a deeper understanding of complex skills and systems, activities designed to have students productively fail are preferable. The decision to design for productive failure depends on the kind of learning pursued, students’ prior knowledge, and the number of possible approaches. Productive failure is most effective for developing skills and deep understanding related to systems. Mastering the skill itself does require successfully practicing the correct approach, so students’ productive failures should be followed by the common tools of instruction, feedback, and relevant practice. Essential to productive failure is that students come up with many different possible solutions and approaches. The number of different ideas that students have is more important than whether or not they come up with the correct approach.
